On the morning of November 6, 2007, a dozen or so armed agents/officers wearing flak jackets and with guns showing, from and/or associated with the Criminal Division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), served a search warrant on the Fort Wayne, Indiana residence of Jim and Denise Simon, while Jim Simon was working in Europe. Denise, at the time, was home preparing her youngest child, a ten year old daughter, for school. The extensive search continued from early morning until late into the evening. Denise was so affected by the events and the deplorable treatment of her by the agents that three days later, on November 9th, she took her own life. She left a typewritten suicide notewhich stated:

"I am truly innocent of any attempt to evade taxes, launder money, commit fraud or the other things I am being accused of … I also have no faith in the legal system or the ability of the government to seek the truth." Written in her own hand under the typed portion of the note, Denise further wrote, "With my dying breath I swear Jim and I are innocent."

The Simons were completely blindsided by the aggressive actions of the IRS, as they had not been contacted by any government representative about any legal concerns before the raid, nor had they received any summons or subpoenas requesting documents or questions to be answered. They had not been in trouble with the federal government before with their taxes or with regard to any other federal law for that matter. They simply were unaware the IRS had any concerns about their income tax returns. Immediately following the raid, the Simons hired an attorney to advise them and in particular seek out information as to what triggered the IRS investigation and what accounted for the unexplained excessive aggression of the IRS. Inquiries were made about the basis of this conduct to no avail.

Let others know what can happen to them. Place our website on your other favorite social web sites, like Face Book. The more people know about what happened to Denise Simon, the more that can be done to protect all of us from experiencing the same horror.

Tell us YOUR story. We are interested in learning about any "surprise" IRS searches; searches which were not ​ preceded by audit notice, subpoena and/or summon. Write to ​ us at info@rememberdenise.org